The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Young takes positives from defeat
Manager Darren Young saw enough in East Fife’s 1-0 defeat at Stair Park to be optimistic about this term.
A second-half Jamie Hamill winner was all that separated the sides, despite both creating many chances.
Young said: “It’s a disappointing result and performance-wise we can do better.
“One of the things we’ve been speaking about during pre-season is taking our chances, and we had three or four really good ones. But Stranraer did as well and it could have been 2-2 or 3-3.
“In the second half there was nothing in it and we get countered from our own free-kick. In that respect it was disappointing but there are quite a few positives.
“We have boys to come back from injury and we worked hard and created chances.
“The boys we brought on all did well as well.”
East Fife started well during what was a pretty open early spell.
Paul Willis jinked pasted defenders to free Nathan Flanagan, whose shot failed to trouble Cammy Belford.
Some good work down the wing between Paul Willis and Kyle Wilson resulted in Wilson squaring the ball to Chris Duggan, who shot over the bar.
East Fife’s Pat Slattery should have put his side one up after latching on to a slack pass, only to shoot wide with the goal at his mercy.
The game swung from end to end in the second half, but both sides were rusty in front of goal.
Then Ryan Wallace dispossessed Mark Docherty on the half-way line and picked out Hamill on the wing. He raced clear on Goodfellow’s goal before slamming past the Fife keeper.
East Fife continued to press forward in the hope of grabbing an equaliser.
Kyle Wilkie and Greg Hurst were added from the bench to increase the attacking threat on the Stranraer goal.
But with a lead to defend, the hosts were comfortable sitting back.